Chicago Entertainment Guide

Cortina’s next of kin is Ford Taunus. Ford with a name Taunus appeared on German market in 1939 for the first time. It’s name origins from the Taunus range of mountains in central Germany, not far from Cologne city. The Ford-Werke AG office (Ford unit in Germany) is located there. The postwar Taunus models used to have a numerical index specifying the engine's working volume: 20M, 26M and other Taunus M-series. Letter "M" is for “Meisterstück” (translated from German as “masterpiece”). When Ford Cortina production – a similar to Taunus model – started in the United Kingdom, the letters TC were added to “Taunus”. That addition meant Taunus-Cortina. It was made to differentiate Taunus and the earlier models with numerical indexes. Ford TC was created with the intention to present a "world" car. Fords from the UK were sold to left-hand traffic countries and some confusion appeared in countries where both models (Taunus and Cortina) were sold.